Two bundles are in the pipeline — both are $29.99 — with one rocking Skyrim & BioShock Infinite, and the other packing Borderlands 2 and Dishonored. Both will be available on the Xbox 360 and PS3 (no PC version, but Steam Sales can help on that front, I think), and DLC is, sadly, not included.

We all have a games backlog (I still haven’t finished…sigh…The Last of Us), so now’s your chance to clear out of some the best games of 2012-13 on previous-gen hardware. As for DLC, you can still purchase it separately, so not all is lost!

Strauss Zelnick, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., is the head of ZelnickMedia, an investor in both Take-Two and Defy Media, LLC, our parent company. This article was published without approval or consent of ZelnickMedia or Take-Two.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/bethesda-2k-games-are-teaming-up-on-29-99-game-bundles/feed/2Exploring the Empire of Isles: What We Want in Dishonored 2http://www.gamefront.com/exploring-the-empire-of-isles-what-we-want-in-dishonored-2/
http://www.gamefront.com/exploring-the-empire-of-isles-what-we-want-in-dishonored-2/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 00:19:19 +0000Phil Hornshawhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=234930It's safe to say we're probably not done with the Dishonored franchise. Here are five elements we want explored in the next game.

Warning! Spoilers for Dishonored and its DLCs, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, to be found herein. If you haven’t finished those, why are you even here?

The story of Dunwall, the diseased, half-magical, half-steampunk city that serves as setting and centerpiece of Arkane Studios’ Dishonored, is finally at an end.

With The Brigmore Witches DLC launching last week, the tales of Corvo (the royal protector who stopped a coup) and Daud (the assassin who started it) have both been wrapped up. The fate of the empire’s capital city has been decided by many a quick blade and quicker bullet. At this point, a sequel to Dishonored is almost a foregone conclusion; the game was a financial and critical success by all accounts, and its creators have fashioned a vast, deep world that harbors plenty of curiosities that still need exploring.

Where will the Dishonored franchise venture to in the future? The Empire of Isles comprises many more places than Dunwall; that much is made clear by the huge amount of lore players can unearth throughout the game. Having played through Dishonored and read more than our fair share of in-game books about life in the rest of the Empire, we compiled a quick list of what we we’d like to see Arkane do as it heads into franchise country.

5. Dude, What’s the Deal with All These Rats

The Rat Plague in Dunwall cripples the city and very nearly destroys it over the course of Dishonored. It literally devastates the population and turning them into “Weepers,” while also ravaging its economic and political landscape. Players who take on Dishonored and keep the deaths to a minimum (while making other key choices) can pave the way for the combined efforts of scientists Sokolov and Piero to eventually rid the city of the plague. Indeed, the “good” ending of Dishonored suggests that, through the player’s efforts and under Emily’s leadership, Dunwall enters a new golden age.

But we never do find out where the Rat Plague actually came from, or why only Dunwall is affected; as Dishonored begins, Corvo is returning from a mission to seek help from other cities, suggesting that they aren’t similarly afflicted. Documents and information found throughout the game and its DLCs raise weird questions about where the plague came from — namely, that it seems to originate within the city and radiate out, rather than having come to Dunwall by ship or some other means.

It appears that something, or someone, is behind the Rat Plague in Dunwall itself. That said, Dishonored never provides an explanation (at least to our knowledge). Given the supernatural spookiness surrounding The Outsider, Corvo, Daud and Delilah, not to mention Sokolov’s scientific advances, it seems possible that the Rat Plague was created by a person. That person might commit more heinous acts in a future story.

Update: It was pointed out to me on Twitter that Hiram Burrows is responsible for the rat plague, according to an audio log I must have missed. To which I say — dammit. I was finding contemplative studies from scientists about the movements of the rats through Dunwall as late as The Brigmore Witches, and liked the idea of it being an unsolved mystery. Hey Arkane, do us a favor and unsolve that mystery.

4. Adventuring Through the Isles

The Empire of Isles consists of four main land masses: Gristol, where Dunwall is located; Tyvia, the northernmost island; Morley, north of Gristol, and the source of the Morley Insurrection against the empire; and Serkonos, the southernmost island, from which Corvo and Daud both originally hail. Each island is known for various attributes, and there are a few books scattered around Dishonored that cast some light on those locations. Serkonos has a tropical climate and is bustling with tourism, for example, whereas Tyvia has a prison in its frozen wastes that doesn’t even bother with walls — prisoners are free to leave and try their luck walking back to civilization. No one makes it.

There’s a ton of diversity left in the Empire of Isles, and that’s not even counting whatever makes up the rest of Gristol, the largest of the islands. Serkonos in particular sounds like it would be a fascinating place to hang out in and murder folks, especially given the population of pirates that purportedly resides there. We also wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at how the whale economy works by spending some time at sea. Not only are there plenty of new places for Dishonored to go — the ability to explore multiple locations would really open the franchise up.

When developers look to create downloadable content for their games, there’s always a tightrope to be walked. The DLC can’t be too much the same, because then players won’t pay for it; but it can’t be too different, because it’s supposed to be an expansion of the original title. Lots of games slip off the tightrope and fall flailing through space, their DLC packs little more than content that probably should have been in the game to begin with.

Arkane Studios, on the other hand, ought to teach a class on the exact way to handle adding additional content to an already complete package. “The Brigmore Witches,” the third expansion to its game Dishonored and the second that adds to its overall story, wraps up the tale of assassin Daud that was begun in The Knife of Dunwall, and successfully adds color and context to the main game, while leaving both experiences as intact wholes. It’s a satisfying expansion to the universe that’s great for Dishonored fans, and the result is a deepening of the overall story of Dishonored without compromising it.

Where The Knife of Dunwall, the first half of this story, was a bit unsatisfying both in its narrative department and, to a lesser degree, in the diversity of levels from the main game, Brigmore Witches almost feels like it was designed to address the first half’s issues. The narrative is a lot more intriguing (largely because it’s the conclusion instead of the setup, but also because of a flood of great overheard moments), and combined with new enemies and areas, the DLC manages to make itself feel distinct from the main title. Brigmore Witches will make you want a Dishonored sequel all the more.

Picking up where The Knife of Dunwall left off, master assassin Daud, the leader of the Whalers assassin gang and the man who murdered the empress at the start of Dishonored, has been put on the trail of a woman named Delilah by the ever-cryptic pseudo-devil The Outsider. After spending the last DLC figuring out who Delilah was — only to briefly encounter her at the end of the DLC, with no answers forthcoming — Daud sets off to find Delilah and uncover whatever sinister plot she’s cooking up. It’s as much about settling a vendetta as it is an investigation at this point.

Like the previous chapter, Brigmore Witches consists of three missions, and each is pretty wildly different from the last. The first revisits Coldwater Prison, the same facility from which Dishonored protagonist Corvo had to escape at the beginning of the main game. This time, Daud is looking for a gang leader who can take him up river to Delilah’s hideout, which means he needs to bust the criminal out of lock-up.

Coldwater is a decent-enough level to check out again, and it’s made better by having Daud’s full range of powers, including his amped-up Blink ability, which allows for mid-air respositioning. It’s the only area that’s a double-back from Dishonored in this DLC, and that’s to the pack’s credit. Coldwater is the least interesting of the three missions, as well as the quickest and the easiest — but it’s not long before things amp up and Brigmore starts exploring new, more exciting territory.

Once Daud has freed gang leader Lizzy, it’s off to her territory, a formerly wealthy merchant district in which two gangs are at war. In order to get access to Lizzy’s smuggling ship, Daud needs to supplant the man who turned her in and replaced her as leader of her gang. The mission feels absolutely huge: there’s the neighborhood where bands of gangsters occasionally stir up trouble, the textile mill that one calls headquarters, the waterfront where the other headquarters can be found, the boat itself, the sewers beneath the area — and all are distinct and worth exploring. It’s also the largest multi-part level of the DLC, and one that offers a lot of options in terms of how players approach their objectives.

Good news, everyone. Dishonored’s The Brigmore Witches, the upcoming Dishonored DLC that concludes the story of the assassin Daud, hasn’t lost a step when it comes to making choices that can potentially hobble you.

In this instance, during my QuakeCon hands-on with the first few sections of the DLC, I successfully busted out of prison someone critical to the DLC’s overall mission. But because I opted to unlock her from her chains before waking her up, I was forced to carry her all the way to the extraction point. This meant having to move with painful slowness through a prison full of suddenly very alert guards, putting her down to work my way through them (I mercilessly killed them), then having to backtrack, pick her back up, and make it to the dropzone. It was a nice moment which reminds you that if nothing else, Dishonored is always about the consequences of your actions.

If you’ve played Knife of Dunwall, then you know the basics. As with “Knife,” you play as Daud as he seeks redemption for having assassinated the Empress at the beginning of the main game. You’ll get to mess around with the same new (and modified versions of old) powers that distinguish Daud from main-game protagonist Corvo, utilize some cool weapons, and get a taste of rampaging around the city of Dunwall as an actual bad guy.

That’s because the main twist of the two DLCs is that unlike Corvo, who is a basically decent man struggling to avenge a great injustice without losing his soul, Daud is an evil man trying to get his soul back. At least in my playthrough of Knife of Dunwall, this meant it at least felt far more difficult to avoid actions that led to a “high chaos level” — Dishonored’s palpable result for killing a lot of people — than in the main game, and that continues in “Witches.”

As The Brigmore Witches begins — or at least, the portion shown to QuakeCon attendees and journalists begins — Daud (voiced by Michael Madsen, Kill Bill Vol. 2) is once again contemplating the error of his ways. After the events of “Knife,” he’s now in the middle of a feud with Delilah, leader of the Brigmore Witches coven. We’re told that Daud must break the ousted leader of one of Dunwall’s criminal gangs out of prison, so she can smuggle him to a mission-critical location at which he can do his thing and, presumably, kill Delilah.

The prison break segment was a lot of fun to play through. Not only is it nice returning to the first true level from the main Dishonored campaign, this time you get to do it fully powered up with useful magic, so that it’s not a painfully frustrating slog. The weirdness here is that when you’re outside the prison, you must work around the Overseers’ music that negates your magical powers. For some reason, the music doesn’t play inside the prison, which means if you’re ever arrested in Dunwall, be sure not to tell them you’ve made a deal with The Outsider.

The segment was short, but contained just enough reasons to explore the prison to keep it from feeling like the fetch quest it clearly is. Once completed, with the rescue of a prisoner named Lizzie Strider, we were skipped ahead to a series of missions set in a new city region called Draper. Formerly a wealthy enclave, the area has now fallen into plague-induced anarchy as two gangs — one of which used to be run by Lizzie — battle for control of the streets. This was by far the more interesting of the two levels shown off, and perhaps one of the more compelling moments throughout Dishonored as a whole.

I mentioned the consequences of your actions earlier for a reason. The entire city is feeling them. The city of Dunwall is a mess, torn apart by factional fighting and disease. And yet, though Dishonored’s main campaign gave a terrifying look into the greater world, it was largely as background to sneaking into the palaces of the wealthy and decadent, through regions of town locked under martial law. That all worked well, but the Daud-centered DLC at least feels much earthier (a natural result of the fact that you’re playing a villain), and the missions in Draper are to my eye the deepest dive into the way regular life in Dunwall has broken down. (And as with the main game and previous DLC, it can be even worse depending on your chaos level.)

Daud must first infiltrate the section of town controlled by Lizzie’s old gang, assassinate the man who betrayed her to the cops, then return control of the gang to her. Mission accomplished, he then needs to infiltrate the HQ of a rival gang, strike a deal with its leader to acquire some much needed tech, and get Lizzie’s boat working again. In both sections you see the early-industrial Europe equivalent of what we imagine our world would look like after a zombie apocalypse. Rival gangs strut around, picking fights with one another, while looted apartments, stray bodies, and the complete breakdown of law and order cast stark light on just how ineffective the ruling clique has been in saving the city. These moments felt as chilling to me as the mission from the main campaign in which your choice is to either kill someone in cold blood, or save her life by handing her over to someone who wants to essentially make her a sex slave.

We have yet to see a full-length AAA video game that really makes a coherent political point, but Dishonored is perhaps the closest we come to a polemic-as-gaming. Based on what we’ve seen from the Dishonored team, I think when the time does come, we’ll see a lot of developers actually getting it right. At minimum, Dishonored continues to make you feel almost bad for the things you do and that, as much as anything else, is making me ravenous for more. The Brigmore Witches drops on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 next week.

Warning! This review includes spoilers to the plot of Dishonored (which should be extremely obvious by now). If you haven’t finished the game, you shouldn’t be reading this review of its DLC. What’s wrong with you, honestly.

My favorite part of playing through Dishonored (and, I suspect, most everyone’s) was the encounter with Daud.

Leader of the assassins group known as the Whalers who wore gas masks to hide their faces, Daud was the man who killed the empress at the beginning of the game and possessed supernatural powers akin to the player’s — and he was something of a forlorn, shattered character, a man for whom the weight of his actions had finally become too crushing to bear.

Developer Arkane Studios revisits the city of Dunwall in its first story-driven DLC pack, “The Knife of Dunwall,” and rather than looking back into what happened to protagonist character Corvo, the DLC lets us get Daud’s perspective on events — a great move in returning us to the city, but this time as a bad guy with a network of assassins at our back. The mechanics are familiar but altered enough to make the DLC feel fresh for seasoned Dishonored veterans, and the whole experience adds to our understanding of the story and of Dunwall without retreading too much of the same ground.

While its story winds up a bit anemic and ends dead-center in the middle of the action (there’s a second DLC pack coming that will wrap up Daud’s story), The Knife of Dunwall lets us play with most of Dishonored’s toys again, with a little something new and another series of great levels and interesting mechanics. If you liked Dishonored the first time out, you should enjoy it again, because The Knife of Dunwall has lots to offer.

When we met Daud in Dishonored, he was conflicted over killing the empress, which feels to him as if he’s condemned Dunwall to its death by plague. Years of blood cover his hands from his work as an assassin, but with the death of the empress, Daud is feeling regret he’s never experienced. It’s in this state that The Outsider, that mythological devil-figure from Dishonored’s lore, visits Daud and puts him on the trail of the name “Delilah,” in events that are apparently taking place in parallel to Corvo’s story in the main game — and seemingly culminating in the fight between Corvo and Daud.

What the deal is with Delilah, we don’t know, and never really find out by the end of The Knife of Dunwall, which is a shame. The expansion is simultaneously too thin on story and burdened with an over-abundance of it, just as Dishonored itself often is. The main plot includes little information, with Daud running around, learning new things from people either by threatening them or doing favors for them, all of which amount to stabbing folks or somehow neutralizing them with a non-lethal solution.

But if you’re willing to wander around every level and really dig into the world, then The Knife of Dunwall will be an impressive, borderline-staggering piece of DLC. Though it spans only three missions, I dumped nearly nine hours into my playthrough, finding every secret in each stage, hitting all the side objectives, and reading all the books and overhearing a great deal of side-conversations. There’s a huge amount of content here that really fleshes out the rest of the world, and if you’re interested in Dunwall, there’s plenty to learn about Daud and his operation, as well as about the whaling economy and a few of the characters from the main game, such as Dr. Sokolov.

From a gameplay standpoint, though, you really don’t need to spend that long, and if you play Knife of Dunwall with an eye toward killing everyone using magic, you’ll likely sprint through it pretty quickly (which was also an issue with the main game). Daud has many of the same powers as Corvo, but with a little bit of remixing to add variety and challenge. The utility of Blink has been increased, for a start: The teleportation power now comes with a time-freeze while you’re aiming it, which allows you to actually use it in mid-air after a jump or during a fall. It also makes it much more effective in sneaking.

Dishonored is set to see the release of its first campaign-expanding DLC next week, titled The Knife of Dunwall. It’s the second DLC for the game, following the release of the Dunwall City Trials DLC which added arenas and challenge-based missions, which we reviewed here.

The Knife of Dunwall puts players in the shoes of Daud, the assassin who takes out the Empress at the very beginning of the original campaign and kidnaps her daughter. You can catch the trailer right here:

In anticipation of its release, we have prepared a quick recap of all our coverage of Dishonored, which has just been updated to version 1.3.

We’ve everything from guides to aid you in getting the most out of Corvo, the game’s protagonist, including a guide for the locations of all the weapon and upgrade blueprints, an outsider shrine locations guide, guides for both rune and bone charm collectibles, and a Sokolov paintings collectible guide. If you’re planning to play the game for the first time, or intent on replaying it before you delve into the DLC, these guides should help you maximize your experience.

For those of you who’ve already completed the game, we’ve prepared a guide on how to do a non-lethal playthrough.

If you’re having trouble playing the game on its highest settings, our .INI tweaks guide will help improve the game’s performance.

It’s unknown whether Dishonored’s creators will develop a sequel after their work on the current game is done, as its co-creator Harvey Smith said last year that he wasn’t sure whether he would like to see a sequel. However, judging from the sales of Dishonored, there’s a good chance it’ll happen.

With the end of LucasArts as a development house, all of us felt a great disturbance in the force. It was like a million games crying out in terror, and then silenced.

Well, perhaps not, but Disney has decreed that they’re getting out of the in-house production of Star Wars titles business and from now on, will exclusively use a licensing model. Alas, for every The Old Republic, there are dozens of horrendously terrible Star Wars titles (we won’t name them, but feel free to debate the matter in comments). That’s why it’s vitally important that, if they’re serious about properly developing Star Wars for video games, Disney picks the right gaming developers.

While we wait to see what happens, we’ve taken a minute to consider who we at Game Front think would make the best use of the Star Wars galaxy. Read on to see the 5 developers we’d love to see make LucasArts games.

Ross Lincoln – Volition on Star Wars 1313

Given that it was intended to be a rated-M game set in the gritty underworld of the Star Wars galaxy, it isn’t a huge shock that Star Wars 1313 has been cancelled as a result of the closure of LucasArts. Disney is super hardcore about protecting their brands, after all. Luckily, it might be saved; supposedly, it just needs the right developer. That developer should be Volition.

You probably thought I would have said Rockstar, but there are two strikes against them;:one, they take forever to get anything out these days, and two, the increasing humorlessness of their games is the wrong fit for the Star Wars Galaxy. Star Wars 1313 should be a combination of ‘gritty’ and ‘scifi’, and it should feel fun and epic in the best pulp science fiction tradition. Volition has already proven they can deliver all of those qualities at once with Red Faction: Guerilla, and the increasingly cray cray Saints Row series has almost turned into Evil Star Trek. Give them 1313 and you’re guaranteed a blast, something sorely missing from the Star Wars franchise ever since the word Midichlorians popped out of George Lucas’ head.

Mark Burnham – CD Projekt on Star Wars 1313

Call me crazy, but I’d like to see CD Projekt take on Star Wars 1313, and turn it into an open-world RPG set in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant.

CDP has proven they can take on licensed material—like they did with the Witcher novels, and like they’re doing with Cyberpunk—and they’d more than ably carry the torch in turning Star Wars 1313 into a more “mature, gritty” spin on the IP.

Phil Hornshaw – Naughty Dog, Epic Games or Irrational on Shadows of the Empire; Eidos Montreal on The Force Unleashed

One of the Star Wars stories I was most interested in when I was growing up was Shadows of the Empire. Somewhat like Dark Forces, it starred a rogueish Han Solo-alike, but I enjoyed how it bridged The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It made the bounty hunters such as IG88 and Boba Fett into real villains, and we could stand to have a story that gives Fett some gravitas — I’d like to see a developer with some chops tackle the idea, like post-Gears of War Judgment Epic Games, Naughty Dog or even Irrational. Dealing with the rebellion in chaos, the heroes downtrodden at the loss of Solo, and Vader’s hounds nipping at their heels could be a lot of fun.

And speaking of revisiting ideas, even though it’s relatively young, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed could function as a phenomenal RPG with a developer like Eidos Montreal behind it. Imagine a Deus Ex-style experience in which you’re hunting down Jedi across the galaxy at the whim of Vader. It could pair nicely with this breakdown of the roles of R2-D2 and Chewbacca to create a phenomenal Star Wars story that’s gone untold. Given when Eidos and the rest have been turning in lately in terms of story, I’d love to see them let loose on the Star Wars canon.

The Star Wars Battlefront franchise combined two things gamer’s the world ’round adore: Star Wars and large-scale combat. Despite rumors of its near-completion, we never did get the third installment of Battlefront, and the game seemingly died when Free Radical Design (now Crytek UK) went into administration.

Star Wars: First Assault, a multiplayer shooter set in that galaxy far, far away, was in the now-defunct hands of LucasArts. First Assault was our only hope of such a game, unless the Disney licensing folks play nice with a top-tier studio in the near future. If Disney is interested in licensing the Star Wars IP for a multiplayer shooter, the two studios at the top of the list have to be DICE and Sony Online Entertainment. Imagine a Star Wars mod built on top of Battlefield 3/4 or PlanetSide 2, and you’ll understand why. With DICE, you would have a 64-man server, half Rebellion and half Empire, duking it out over a handful of assets and control points. And like the Titan from Battlefield 2142, Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari cruisers could provide support from the heavens. SOE would broaden the scope of the battle, focusing on entire planets instead of a few flash-points. The fight for Coruscant would be a conflict of epic proportions.

Either way, playing Stormtrooper or X-Wing pilot in a server with dozens (or hundreds) of other people could make for a genre-defining experience.

Ian Miles Cheong – Arkane on a Star Wars FPS

Arkane Studios isn’t a very big name in the game industry, and it’s not a studio that immediately comes to mind when you think of Star Wars. But if there’s any company capable of putting together a game with excellent first person combat, it’s them. Arkane proved their worth with Dark Messiah of Might & Magic ages ago, and they went the distance with Dishonored—a game which you’ll recall has kinetic first person combat (replete with ripostes and parrying!) and magical abilities which all share strong similarities to the Force powers in the Star Wars universe.

Beyond their ability to put together an FPS with a strong focus on melee combat, their creativity when it comes to art direction and storytelling could only serve to make the Star Wars universe that much more interesting.

Not satisfied with our picks? Let us know who you’d like to see handling Star Wars IP in comments.

]]>Minor spoilers here about the beginning if the main Dishonored campaign. Also, check out our main Dishonored review.

We all know that The Knife of Dunwall, Dishonored‘s first DLC, will cast players as Daud, the assassin who killed the Empress at the beginning of the game. What we didn’t know was how Arkane Studios would approach the story, or what sort of character Daud would be. At PAX East last weekend, we got our first taste when I sat down to play through the first mission.

In the mission’s intro, Daud (voiced by Michael Madsen) explains how he knew the assassination of the Empress was different from his other kills. Shortly thereafter, the Outsider pops up, tells him it was different, and that he’ll need to hunt down “Delilah” if he wants to make things right. Just who or what “Delilah” is isn’t really clear.

Daud will visit parts of the city that Corvo didn’t. That means the urge to explore, take in the lore, and just see what Dunwall has to offer will definitely rear its head again. Not only can you check out the Legal District, but the very first mission will have you working your way through one of the whale slaughterhouses that power the city (If it also includes a whaling ship mission, Phil Hornshaw will be so happy).

Jumping into gameplay, Daud plays very similarly to Corvo, with a few fundamental differences. Not only does he have the ability summon one of his assassins to assist him, he can share powers with his fellow assassins (as was mentioned in Dishonored’s main story). There wasn’t any reason given in the story that I heard for this being possible, but perhaps that will be revealed later in the DLC.

Daud will also have access to devices that Corvo didn’t. He’ll use a wristbow instead of Corvo’s crossbow, and he’ll also have the new Arc Mine, which is sort of a cross between an Arc Pylon and Corvo’s Springrazor. Like the Arc Pylons, the mine will take out one enemy at a time until it runs out of charges. The Arc Mine can be attached to surfaces, but I was also able to place one on a dead body as a surprise for anyone investigating.

Another new item is Chokedust, which is basically a stun powder. You can use it to escape from a hairy situation, or just to gain the upper hand on a group of opponents. Using it causes enemies affected to go back into search mode, allowing you to quickly Blink away, or take them out, depending on your play style.

The biggest difference to note in this DLC is that Daud’s Blink ability is massively different than Corvo’s, and it will take some getting used to. Be prepared to fall often until you get the hang of it. You see, when Daud Blinks, time momentarily stops, and you actually teleport again before it restarts. You can use this to work your way around a corner, freeze and turn in midair, or any number of other ways.

Playing just the first mission of The Knife of Dunwall already has me itching for its release. Daud is familiar, but he isn’t exactly Corvo, and that means that the DLC will feel fresh while still making us remember the main game. That’s a balance that isn’t easy to strike, but based on what I saw at PAX East, Arkane Studios has hit it right on the head. The Knife of Dunwall DLC releases on April 16, with another DLC pack that will complete Daud’s story, The Brigmore Witches, coming later this year.

If you’ve been pining for the music for Bethesda games (and ones they’ve published), we have good news for you: You can buy it now.

We have bad news, also: You have to buy it through iTunes.

But if you’re willing to make that sacrifice, good news! You can now purchase the soundtracks for Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Dishonored from iTunes! Each of the soundtracks will run you between $10 and $12 (Fallout’s 29-track soundtrack has the highest price), and you’ll also get the iTunes DRM everyone loves along with them.

On the plus side, these soundtracks haven’t been available anywhere, ever — except for ripped versions that have appeared on places like Bandcamp and YouTube. And if you’re itching for Bethesda music, all of which is really good, you could do worse.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be listening to Dishonored’s “The Drunken Whaler” on repeat for five hours.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/fallout-3-dishonored-morrowind-soundtracks-now-on-itunes/feed/0Dishonored ‘Dunwall City Trials’ DLC Review: Worthy Challengeshttp://www.gamefront.com/dishonored-dunwall-city-trials-dlc-review-worthy-challenges/
http://www.gamefront.com/dishonored-dunwall-city-trials-dlc-review-worthy-challenges/#commentsMon, 17 Dec 2012 19:48:38 +0000Phil Hornshawhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=198091Dunwall City Trials is a challenge mode that's right at home in Dishonored, and adds a lot to the game.

Back when The Orange Box came out, I was still in college, and spent a lot of my video game time searching for achievements. I had a running battle for Xbox Live Gamerscore going with my old roommates and friends, and we’d take it so far as to play the living crap out of games like Hexic and King Kong just to one-up each other.

Portal includes some pretty ingenious, but extremely difficult, challenge mode levels. Completing puzzles with the fewest steps possible, in the shortest time possible, and with the fewest portals possible, was a challenge that kept me busy for a long, long time. Eventually I maxed out Portal, and The Orange Box as a whole, and the feat still stands as one of my proudest gaming achievements. While the Portal challenge modes were ruthless, they were also incredibly fun and extremely rewarding.

“Dunwall City Trials,” the first DLC pack released for Dishonored, feels like Portal’s Challenge levels did. The series of 10 different challenge levels are diverse and inventive, and best of all, they’re difficult. They feel like worthy challenges.

With all the supernatural powers players get to use as they take on the role of super-assassin Corvo in Dishonored, it only makes sense that the game would encourage you to exercise your skills in a series of specialized challenge levels. That’s what Dunwall City Trials is, focusing on four areas: fighting, stealth, speed and puzzle-solving. What’s great about these challenges is that Arkane make them each fairly unique. It could have just had players racing on rooftops again and again, or doing four variations on target shooting (well, there is a target shooting challenge). Instead, the developer came up with some really smart ways to test players capabilities in using the gifts of The Outsider.

Firing up the DLC gives you a rundown of all the challenges, and each has a specific icon to indicate what part of your skill set you’ll be exercising when you start it up. A few are necessarily a bit pedestrian — a survival mode brawl against a series of groups of enemies, each harder than the last, makes too much sense (and is too much fun) to pass up. Others, like a speed run that has players descending a bunch of drops while performing air assassinations at every step of the way, are truly inspired ways of building Corvo-specific levels.

Each of the challenges includes a three-star rating system and a points-based scoring system. The rules of each are different, but the goal is always to earn as much points as possible to rack up a high rating. Break two stars or better and you unlock the even harder “Expert” versions of each challenge, but in its own right, getting three stars even on the “Normal” challenges is a tall order.

Some of the 10 challenges are really inspired. My favorite is probably Mystery Foe, a stealth-based challenge that recalls the level “Lady Boyle’s Last Party” from the campaign, and tasks you with sneaking around a mansion, gathering clues about which of the various people there you have to assassinate. The fewer clues you need to find your man or woman, the more points you score; you’re also given bonus points for avoiding guards and for not requiring to knock anyone out.

The second stealth challenge, Burglary, is similarly fun. It has players sneaking around a building, grabbing as much loot as they can, as well as six key items. The more you grab, the more points you earn, and you’re rewarded for being both highly stealthy and bold — so you might want to try pickpocketing the guards as you’re slinking around.

Other challenges are a little more simplistic. Bonfire Run is a speed run with checkpoints along the way, more or less; another challenge has you shooting down as many whale oil tanks as you can, like at a skeet shooting range. But they all have a bit of a Dishonored twist, as well, with the whale oil tanks exploding to give you different benefits or negative effects, and the survival mode providing you with different powers at intervals, giving you the opportunity to change up your tactics.

And a few of the challenges are really inspired. The Air Assassination speed run I mentioned before is particularly addictive, as is the time-bending massacre puzzle, in which players have to figure out how to use a short stint of frozen time to their advantage to kill as many people in a level as possible. Even the simpler challenges make great use of what makes Dishonored interesting — its powers system — and test the skills players have built up through the course of the game.

What I like best about the challenges, though, is that they’re hard. My best performance on any of them was two stars during my play time for this review, and that’s to say nothing of the six significantly harder challenges that open up after you fight through the base set. Add to that a series of tough achievements that ask even more of your skills than the challenges do, and even a series of hidden collectibles you need to find in each challenge that has nothing to do with the level itself, and you’ve got a fairly robust package for just $5.

Dunwall City Trials is not going to be for everyone. This isn’t story DLC, after all (that comes next year), and it adds nothing to the narrative or characterization of the game. What it does, however, is give you some nifty playgrounds in which to mess with Arkane’s intriguing and sophisticated set of tools. This sort of thing is a skill player or a completionist’s idea of a really good time. If you’re like me, Dunwall City Trials will be a $5 investment that’ll provide several hours of infuriating, but ultimately rewarding, entertainment.

Pros:

Some inspired puzzles and challenges in this group of 10 new Challenge levels

Throws in collectibles hidden in Trial levels, which changes things up even more

Challenges are pretty tough (which is good), and doing well unlocks additional “Expert” challenges, which are even tougher

Even on the simpler or more standard-issue challenges, Arkane has changed up the formula through the inclusion of Corvo’s powers

One challenge is basically a rehash of the “Lady Boyle’s Last Party” level, which is Dishonored’s best — and even better, its elements are randomized each time you play it

Cons:

Challenge mode is probably something that should have shipped with the base game

While the challenges are all fun, some are a lot like what you’d see offered in other, similar games

Definitely not for everyone — these levels are specifically for players who want to test skill and complete everything; little to offer if that’s not your thing

The first hunk of downloadable content for Arkane Studios’ hit stealth title Dishonored is now available for you to play.

Titled “Dunwall City Trials,” the DLC doesn’t add to the story, but is instead focused on giving players challenges to complete that require them to effectively utilize the game’s supernatural powers. There are 10 such trial maps in the DLC pack, complete with online leaderboards, and it sounds like they’ll encompass things like speed runs and carefully executed assassinations.

Additional DLC also has been announced running into the new year. We’ll be getting two bits of story expansion DLC for Dishonored in 2013, although the exact release dates for those packs have not yet been nailed down.

Meanwhile, you can grab Dunwall City Trials on Steam, Xbox Live and the Playstation Network now for $4.99, or 400 Microsoft Points.

Bethesda is pleased with the commercial success of Arkane Studios’ acclaimed stealth title Dishonored.

Speaking with Destructoid, Bethesda PR head Pete Hines said that the game has “exceeded expectations,” although he declined to give any actual sales figures.

“I can tell you that Dishonored is far exceeding our sales expectations, which is especially cool considering it’s new IP facing a host of well-established franchises this quarter,” Hines said. “We did terrific numbers again this past weekend, both in stores and on Steam, where Dishonored was listed as the #1 selling title over the holiday weekend. And Dishonored has really sold well overseas.

“So, we’re very pleased and appreciate all the fans that have supported Dishonored and Arkane. We clearly have a new franchise.”

Care to show off your skill at taking out the corrupt leadership of Dunwall? You might be able to snab a sweet prize from Bethesda. The announcement was made earlier today on their official site:

Starting today, we’re looking for the most creative power combos, the craziest kill moves and the sneakiest feats of stealth on YouTube. To enter the contest, simply upload a direct capture Dishonored video clip to YouTube — under 60 seconds and at 720p quality — by 11:59pm EST on October 31.

There are two ways to submit your entry:

1. Email us a link to your video at “bethblog@bethsoft.com” with subject line “Dishonored Killer Moves”

2. Tweet a link to your video with hashtag “#DishonoredKillerMoves”

If we like your clip, we’ll request your high-quality raw video file from you, so hold on to that. We’ll then include your footage in a compilation video and credit you appropriately, while the player with the most impressive clip will win a framed Dishonored painting (pictured here). Preference will be given to clips with music disabled, and direct capture is a must.

If you win, you’ll get that cool painting of the Pendleton brothers you see at the top of the page. For more information, see the official blog entry.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/bethesda-hosting-dishonored-video-contest/feed/0Three DLC Packs Coming to Dishonored, First in Decemberhttp://www.gamefront.com/three-dlc-packs-coming-to-dishonored-first-in-december/
http://www.gamefront.com/three-dlc-packs-coming-to-dishonored-first-in-december/#commentsThu, 25 Oct 2012 16:01:34 +0000Phil Hornshawhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=189370Story DLC is on its way in 2013.

Two of the three DLCs haven’t been detailed yet, but we’re told that they’ll be story-based campaigns that will launch sometime in 2013. No details on prices for those yet.

The other pack, which is coming out in Decmeber, will be called the Dunwall City Trials Pack. Sounds like it’ll be, in essence, similar to Metal Gear Solid’s VR missions, offering 10 different maps and objectives that each offer different challenges. Here’s a quote from Bethesda’s press release:

“Ten distinct trials await challengers – including an arena battle against waves of enemy AI, a gravity-defying run of drop assassinations, and a race against the clock. Dunwall City Trials also features a whole new set of achievements and trophies as well as a global online leaderboard that will establish the greatest assassins for each challenge.”

So the good news is that the Dunwall City Trials will at least keep you somewhat busy, even if it sounds less engaging than the promised story content. We’ll keep an eye out for more details on what those packs will entail, but in the meantime, here’s what we hope they’ll include.

The Dishonored team is made of of people who worked on Deus Ex and Thief, so it makes perfect sense that as they were putting their game together, they’d draw from past experience for inspiration. (Indeed, Ricardo Bare explained their genre well when we interviewed him last week.) Dishonored obviously stakes out some rather unique ground, but it’s interesting while playing that you can see the connection between it and those earlier games. Illustrating that point, Dishonored artist Wes Burt has posted some early concept art demonstrating how Dishonored protagonist Corvo developed, and the similarities to Thief’s Garrett are pretty striking.